No One Can "Co-opt" Palestine

The Left Doesn't Own the Cause

Are Conservatives “Hijacking” Anti-Israel Discourse?

There is a very stupid narrative taking shape among certain leftists and liberal-left commentators right now. It goes something like this: yes, Israel is committing atrocities, yes, America should stop funding it, yes, Democrats are cowards on this issue, but also, we must be very worried that the Palestinian cause is being “co-opted” by the Right. When left populists and right populists start to agree that ethnic cleansing is bad and that we should do something about it, now some leftists are suddenly concerned about “antisemitism” and that we should not “trust” right-wingers who have become advocates against Israel and what it is doing to the Palestinians, Iran, and Lebanon.

You see this argument whenever people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, or Marjorie Taylor Greene criticize Israel. Suddenly, the concern is not that Israel is being armed, funded, and diplomatically protected by the most powerful country on earth. The concern is that the wrong people are criticizing it. The worry is that Palestine, as a cause, is being contaminated by right-wingers who do not have the correct politics, the correct motives, the correct moral formation, or the correct theory of liberation.

The basic narrative is that The Right Are No Friends of Palestine and that we must not “trust” the Right on Palestine. Fair enough. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks Tucker Carlson is a leftist. Nobody thinks Candace Owens is a Marxist anti-imperialist. Nobody thinks Marjorie Taylor Greene has suddenly become a tender-hearted internationalist because she says America should stop funding Israel. Fine. Great. Congratulations. You noticed that right-wingers are right-wingers.

But that is not the question. The question is whether this whole narrative of co-optation makes any political sense. The question is whether the Left should view right-wing criticism of Israel as a threat to its ownership of the Palestinian cause, or as a crack in the bipartisan consensus that has protected Israel for decades. The question is whether the spread of anti-Israel sentiment on the Right is actually bad for Palestine, or whether it is bad for a certain kind of leftist who has gotten used to treating Palestine as one of the few remaining issues through which they can still feel morally superior to ordinary people. If right-wing criticism of Israel weakens the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus, then anyone serious about Palestine should welcome the fracture.

This does not mean “trusting” right-wing figures. You shouldn’t “trust” politicians and media power-seekers in general. This is a dumb way of thinking about politics. You should care more about if what they say is true, and what the effects of their actions may be. It does not mean pretending they care about Palestine in the same way. It does not mean pretending right-wing criticism of Israel is always noble, humane, or even coherent. It means understanding that politics is not a church service. You are not picking saints. You are trying to produce consequences.

Ultimately, actual tangible change on this issue is not going to happen just because a bunch of people march in the streets wearing keffiyehs. It is not going to happen through leftist protests alone, or through endless finger-wagging from people whose main political skill is denouncing everyone else for being morally contaminated. At the end of the day, if you want the United States to stop arming, funding, and diplomatically shielding Israel, you need enough people across different sides of the aisle to actually make that happen.

That is why the overlap between right-wing populists and left-wing populists on this issue should be treated as an opportunity, not as some terrifying contamination event. If right-wing populists and left-wing populists can find common cause in opposing American support for Israel, that is something to exploit, widen, and champion, not something to fear because it offends the ideological purity of some PMC activist hall monitor.

This is exactly what exposes the fake activist, fake anti-Zionist, PMC Left. They claim to care about stopping genocide, but the second the issue starts to escape their preferred ideological enclosure, they panic. They would rather warn leftists about impurity, co-optation, and bad allies than actually build the kind of pressure capable of producing policy changes. They want Palestine as a righteous posture, not as a political struggle that might require uncomfortable alliances.

Effects Matter More Than Intentions

The question of intentions also cuts both ways. These people love to say that right-wingers oppose Israel for the wrong reasons. Maybe they do. Some oppose Israel out of nationalism. Some oppose Israel out of isolationism. Some oppose Israel because they do not want war with Iran. Some oppose Israel because they resent foreign influence over American politics. Some oppose Israel because they think America should spend money at home instead of sending it to a foreign military. And some people might oppose Israel simply because they are anti-semites and think Jews control the world. I have hardly met any people who oppose Israel solely for such reasons, but fine, let’s assume they do. Either way, different people might oppose Israel for different reasons. And? At this present moment, the priority for those who claim to care about Palestine shouldn’t be to try to police who can and who can’t oppose Israel. The power of Israeli influence on America is enabled by a bipartisan consensus, in which the Republican party is even more embedded with more hardline supporters of the Israel lobby (AIPAC), while the Democrats are wedded to a mixture of the liberal-Zionist Lobby (J-Street) and AIPAC. AIPAC actually spends even more money on Democratic elections than they do on Republicans, because in the case of Republicans, there are a lot more Evangelical politicians who genuinely support Israel at an ideological level, wheras the Democrats have historically had to do more to keep anti-establishment insurgent Candidates out. Now that there are finally dissidents in the Republican Party willing to take the risk of going against Israel, we should welcome that. Today, the Republican Party is Israel’s biggest stronghold when it comes to securing unflinching support for Israel’s interests. Disrupting that influence via an insurgent movement within the Republican party is pivotal to changing anything. If you are worried more about the purity of intentions or the problematic beliefs of these anti-Israel dissenters within the GOP, then you are revealing that words and aesthetics matter to you more than dead children.

Even “pure” intentions are sometimes bullshit, and that’s ok

Let’s also not pretend the people with the supposedly correct intentions are always so pure either. Sometimes even “good intentions” are fake anyway. Some people support Palestine because they genuinely care about Palestinians. I believe that is true for many people. But some support Palestine in the same way they supported Black Lives Matter, or Ukraine, or whatever the Current Thing was six months earlier. Some white liberal PMC activists attach themselves to Palestine because it gives them moral status. Some want to look radical. Some want to impress their friends. Some want to get laid at a protest. Some want to be seen as brave by precisely the class of people who already agree with them.

Do I like that? Not really. Do I cringe when someone who had a Ukraine flag in their bio yesterday suddenly discovers Palestine today because the social weather changed? Of course. But am I against their support? No. Better they support Palestine than not. Better the fake, morally fashionable person supports the cause than remains silent. Better the woke virtue-signaler, the Catholic traditionalist, the Arab nationalist, the antiwar libertarian, the right-wing populist, the left-wing populist, the Muslim activist, the Christian dissident, the cynical protest dater, and the ordinary American disgusted by dead children all oppose American support for Israel than have half of them sit it out because their motives are impure.

Effects matter more than intentions. This is what Machiavelli called the “effectual truth.” You judge the truth of the matter by its effects, not just its intentions. The ends do not necessarily justify the means by definition, but they may excuse the means depending on the net effects of the outcome. What matters more than intentions with the case of Israel-Palestine is where the pressure goes. What matters is whether the pressure helps cut off aid to Israel, block weapons transfers, sanction Israel, and break the machinery that makes unconditional American support for Israel feel inevitable. Especially in an environment where AIPAC and AIPAC-linked political machinery have shown they are willing to spend staggering sums to punish Israel critics, from Jamaal Bowman to Thomas Massie, we cannot afford to be choosy about every single person who joins the pressure campaign.

AIPAC spent millions to help defeat Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project has also targeted Thomas Massie, one of the most prominent Republican critics of Israel, with major ad spending. That tells you everything. The Israel lobby understands politics as power. It understands elections, pressure, money, discipline, punishment, and incentives. Meanwhile, some leftists understand politics as a moral cleanliness ritual where the most important thing is making sure nobody impure accidentally helps you win.

This is why the Graham Platner example is so useful. Platner is not just some random Democrat with a mild, carefully focus-grouped criticism of Netanyahu. He is the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, running against Susan Collins, and he has made ending U.S. military support for Israel, rejecting AIPAC-style politics, and condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide a central part of his campaign.

That is exactly why many liberals and leftists are willing to work with him, support him, or at least treat him as a legitimate vehicle for anti-Israel politics inside the Democratic Party. Fine. Good. I agree with supporting him on that issue. But then let us be honest about Grahm Planter’s background. Platner is not exactly a spotless little angel of progressive morality either. He is not the wholesome chungus that many liberal-leftist media figures are making him out to be. Planter enthusiastically served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In resurfaced Reddit comments and related reporting, he has faced criticism for disturbing comments about military service, sex, violence, and killing. He has also faced controversy over a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi-linked Totenkopf symbol, which he says he did not understand at the time and later covered up. So why is he redeemable?

Personally, I would not dismiss Planter entirely based on his past because I judge these kinds of things based on who the person is now, and what kind of effects they could have on the future. But if Marjorie Taylor Greene is irredeemable because of her prior Islamophobic comments, then why is Grahmn Planter, who actually killed Muslims in combat, redeemable? The answer is obvious: because he is on the “correct” side of the liberal-left aisle. His baggage can be contextualized, forgiven, explained, or subordinated to his present political usefulness because he is a progressive Democrat attacking AIPAC and calling Gaza a genocide.

Again, fine. I am not against pragmatism. But leftists should apply this pragmatic logic consistently if they are serious. If Graham Platner’s past does not automatically invalidate him as a lesser-evil Candidate to support in order to get another person in government who is willing to cut all aid to Israel, then why does Marjorie Taylor Greene’s past automatically invalidate working with her on anti-Israel legislation? If what matters is the concrete political position someone takes now, then why is Platner usable but Greene untouchable? If the answer is simply that one is in the Democratic-progressive world and the other is a right-wing freak, then stop pretending this is all about “leftist moral principles.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene believed in QAnon, supported January 6, has said vile things about Muslims, and is a questionable individual with a grotesque political past. Nobody needs to sanitize her. Nobody needs to invite her into some imaginary coalition of friendship. But if she supports legislation that cuts off funding to Israel or limits the influence of foreign Super PACs and pro-Israel lobbying power in American politics, I will take it. Gladly. I would encourage it, rather than chastise people on the right for amplifying a shared cause and accusing them of nefarious motives I cannot prove.

That does not mean you have to endorsing everyting she says or believes in. It does not mean “joining the Right.” It does not mean pretending her worldview is good. It means I am not so politically useless that I would rather preserve my own moral cleanliness than help stop my own government from funding massacres. All of this seems so stupidly obvious that I feel stupid even having to type this out. But apparently it’s not, given all the pearl-clutching from certain voices of the mainstream left.

This is where the AOC example matters, and it has to be stated directly rather than left as a vague purity-test complaint. When Marjorie Taylor Greene was still serving in Congress, she introduced an amendment to H.R. 4016, the 2026 defense appropriations bill, that would have cut $500 million from Israeli Cooperative Programs, including funding tied to Israel’s missile defense systems. Thomas Massie voted for it. So did Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee, and Al Green. AOC voted against it.

To be source-precise, Greene’s amendment was not a clean bill to cut off all aid to Israel. It was an amendment to cut a specific $500 million tranche of Israel-related military funding. AOC’s excuse was that it did not cut off offensive aid or stop U.S. munitions being used in Gaza, but only targeted Iron Dome and related defensive capacities. But this rationale is weak, and frankly it smells like bullshit.

If the problem was simply that Greene’s amendment targeted “defensive” systems rather than offensive bombs, then why did Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib vote for it? These are two of the strongest pro-Palestine voices in Congress. They are not exactly confused about Israel, Gaza, or the difference between defensive and offensive military aid. They still judged the amendment worth supporting because, at the end of the day, it cut Israel-related military funding. That is the point.

And AOC’s position becomes even flimsier when you remember her earlier Iron Dome record. In 2021, the House voted on a standalone bill giving Israel $1 billion in supplemental Iron Dome funding. AOC did not vote no. She voted present. She later insisted that she opposed the bill, but voting present on a $1 billion Iron Dome bill is not exactly the act of someone with a hard, consistent position against funding Israel’s military systems.

So when AOC later claims she voted against Greene’s amendment because it targeted Iron Dome and not offensive munitions, the obvious response is: okay, but you have already refused to vote clearly against Iron Dome funding before. And when Omar and Tlaib voted for Greene’s amendment anyway, the “it was only defensive funding” excuse becomes even less convincing.

A right-wing freak moved, in concrete legislative form, to cut Israel-related military funding. Massie supported it. Omar supported it. Tlaib supported it. Summer Lee supported it. Al Green supported it. AOC did not.

And then, in the later controversy over whether the Left should align with Greene on Gaza or Israel policy, AOC rationalized the refusal by calling Greene a proven bigot and antisemite and saying she did not think it benefited the movement to align the Left with white nationalists. This is exactly the kind of liberal-left moral quarantine I am attacking.

The foreign-lobby point is related but source-wise separate. Greene herself has attacked AIPAC as a foreign lobby and said it should register as a foreign lobbyist. Massie then introduced the AIPAC Act, the Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity Act, which would amend FARA so organizations principally advancing the interests of a foreign nation could be forced to register. Again, one can hate the messenger all one wants. The proposal itself goes directly at the machinery of pro-Israel influence in Washington.

So what exactly is the principle here? Are we supposed to oppose AIPAC, but only when the person opposing AIPAC has the right vibes? Are we supposed to cut aid to Israel, but only if the amendment is introduced by someone with a morally acceptable résumé? Are we supposed to be serious about genocide and then collapse into fainting-couch liberalism the second a Republican freak does something materially useful? Should we let the bombs keep falling because one of the people willing to vote against funding them also believes insane things?

The Current Affairs-style version of this argument becomes even more absurd because it wants to have it both ways. It says Democrats should listen to figures like Abdul El-Sayed and Graham Platner because they criticize Israel from the correct moral place, but we should be worried when people on the Right criticize Israel from the wrong moral place. Graham Platner opposing Israel is good. Tucker Carlson opposing Israel is dangerous. A progressive Democrat criticizing Israel is a sign of moral courage. A right-wing nationalist criticizing Israel is a threat to the integrity of the movement. But what is the point of “the movement” if it dosen’t actually change anything? This thinking reveals a deep misunderstanding of how the Palestinian cause has actually existed outside the fantasy world of Western leftist self-flattery.

Israel-Palestine is Not Inherently a Left or Right Issue

The Left does not have a monopoly on Palestine because Palestine was never a purely left-wing cause in the first place. The actual resistance to Israel has never been reducible to the categories of American progressive politics. Hamas is not a progressive left-wing organization. By any ordinary Western left-liberal standard, Hamas is an Islamist, socially conservative, religious organization, and is deeply right-wing in many respects. Far more right-wing than the PLO was. Does that mean the left should inherently oppose Palestinian liberation because the people fighting the battle are “problematic” (to put it lightly..)? No. That would be absurd, even though I have seen certain leftists in fact take this position. The point is that it is absurd to pretend that the Left, especially the Western Left, holds any claim over the Palestinian cause, which is a preposition implied in the notion that it can be “hijacked” by right-wingers. The narrative amounts to leftists complaining that the right has stolen their lunch.

Furthermore, the most prominent armed resistance to Israel in general is not left-wing. By most measures, the United States government is far more in line with left-wing ideals than the Islamic Republic of Iran, but that shouldn’t be a reason not to oppose the war. The same is true if we look at Lebanon. Resistance to Israel has historically involved a mixture of nationalists, leftists, Islamists, and other forces. It was never some clean left-wing seminar-room coalition. In earlier periods, leftists and nationalists fought Israel. Today, the most powerful force resisting Israel in Lebanon is Hezbollah, which is not a “left-wing” movement. It is a socially conservative, Shia Islamist force that emerged as a resistance force to Israeli aggression following the collapse of the Lebanese left after the Lebanese Civil War (which is a very complicated matter, but let’s just say Syria’s surprise betrayal played a major role in that). Israeli Anyone pretending that resistance to Israel is somehow the natural intellectual property of leftists is living in a fantasy world.

Even historically, some of the most consequential restraints on Israel did not come from leftist protesters chanting slogans. In Lebanon in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, of all people, pressured Israel during the siege and bombing of Beirut. That does not make Reagan a hero or anything. It makes the point obvious: power does not always move through the morally pure channels leftists fantasize about. Sometimes pressure comes from national interest, geopolitical calculation, fear of regional escalation, or simple disgust at the optics of Israeli brutality. Again, welcome to politics.

Ideological alignment and whether or not something is more “leftist” or more “right-wing” are very limited criteria for guiding one’s geopolitical stances. This is the exact kind of logic that gets exploited by pro-Israel propaganda when they weaponize social progressivism and causes like LGBTQ or feminism in order to demonize Israel’s enemies. “Do you support Palestinian liberation against Israeli occupation? What about the gays?” “You are seeing a simmilar logic get reinforced implicitly by the leftists who are against strategically working with right-wing populists against the Israel lobby, because of ‘anti-semitism’ and ‘enabling the far-right.”

In Practice, Who is a “Friend of Palestine” ?

This is also why the Tucker Carlson point has to be understood properly. The issue is not whether Tucker Carlson is preferable to Graham Platner. That is not even the right comparison. Tucker is not running for office. Graham Platner is. The point is not to compare their entire political programs, as if we are choosing between them in a ranked-choice election for the soul of America.

The point is much simpler and much more damning for the liberal-left critics of Tucker: Tucker Carlson has probably done more to make ordinary Americans aware of Israel’s crimes and the insanity of America’s relationship with Israel than most leftists who spend their time preaching to people who already agree with them. That is the part they cannot stand.

Most left-wing commentary on Palestine circulates among people who are already horrified by Israel. It speaks to the already converted. It gives moral language, historical context, and ideological reinforcement to people who already know that Israel is committing atrocities. That has its place, but let us not kid ourselves. It is not exactly breaking through to the millions of normal Americans who do not read left-wing magazines, do not attend Palestine rallies, do not know what settler colonialism means, and do not experience U.S. imperialism as a compelling reason to oppose Israel.

Tucker Carlson, whatever else one thinks of him, has reached those people.

He has challenged some of the most prominent pro-Israel foreign policy voices directly, to their face, in front of enormous audiences. When he pushes people like Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee on Israel, Iran, and America’s subservience to Israeli interests, he is not speaking to a seminar room of leftists already nodding along. He is bringing the contradiction to the very people the Left has largely failed to reach.

That matters. And it matters not only because of audience size, but because Tucker and the broader America First critique of Israel offer a narrative that is far more compelling to ordinary Americans than the standard New Left version of the argument.

The usual left-wing narrative says America supports Israel because Israel is a settler-colonial outpost of U.S. imperialism. In this version, Israel is treated as a subordinate instrument of American imperial strategy, a projection of American power, a little Middle Eastern America doing America’s dirty work. Not only is this narrative quite misleading (as I showed in my Substack essay America Didn’t Always Support Israel, which should be read alongside this one, but it’s also very useless as a political narrative for persuading normal Americans.

It centers America as the primary villain and treats Israel as an extension of America. It says to Americans, in effect, Israel is bad because it is like you. That may satisfy leftists who already view America as the root of all evil, but it is not exactly the most effective way to make Americans angry at Israel. If anything, emphasizing the supposed sameness between America and Israel can inadvertently make some Americans more sympathetic to Israel, not less.

The standard left-wing account often acts as if the U.S.-Israel relationship is the most natural thing in the world, as if Israel has always been America’s inevitable imperial partner. But that is historically false. America did not always support Israel in the same way. The relationship had to be built, sold, institutionalized, sacralized, and protected through lobbying, propaganda, religious rhetoric, Cold War strategy, and domestic political pressure.

That history matters because it reveals something the New Left account often obscures: Israel is not simply America’s puppet. In many cases, Israel and the Israel lobby have worked to shape, capture, pressure, and discipline American politics in Israel’s favor. This is why Mearsheimer and Walt’s account of the Israel lobby remains important. You do not have to accept every part of their thesis to see the obvious point that organized pro-Israel power in Washington has had a massive effect on the range of acceptable opinion in American politics.

This is where the America First argument is more effective. It does not say, Israel is bad because Israel is just like America. It says, Israel is not America. Israel is a foreign country. Israel has its own interests. Israel’s interests are not always America’s interests. So why are American politicians acting like they work for Israel?

That is a much more persuasive argument to the average American. It creates distance between Americans and Israelis. It breaks the fake civilizational romance. It refuses the propaganda that America and Israel are eternal Judeo-Christian partners, shared guardians of Western civilization, natural allies joined by destiny and moral innocence. It says, no, actually, this is a foreign state with its own lobby, its own army, its own regional ambitions, and its own ability to drag America into disasters.

That narrative is far more dangerous to Zionist propaganda than the usual leftist script. In fact, the usual leftist script can sometimes accidentally reinforce Zionist propaganda. Zionist propaganda constantly insists that Israel and America are bound together by shared values, shared civilization, shared enemies, shared democracy, shared Biblical destiny, and shared Western identity. Then some leftists come along and say, yes, exactly, Israel is basically America. They mean it as an indictment. But politically, they are still reinforcing the symbolic fusion that Zionist propaganda depends on.

The America First case does the opposite. It breaks the fusion. It asks why America should bankrupt itself, corrupt its own politics, risk war with Iran, and send billions of dollars to a country that is not America. It asks why American politicians are more passionate about Israel’s borders than their own. It asks why criticism of a foreign state is treated as a domestic thoughtcrime. It asks why Americans are expected to clap like trained seals while their political class funnels money, weapons, and diplomatic cover to a government that is now despised by huge portions of the world.

That is why people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have had a real effect in turning sections of public sentiment against Israel. Not because they are pure. Not because they are leftists. Not because they care about Palestine in the same way I do. But because they have attacked the legitimacy of the U.S.-Israel relationship in a language that ordinary Americans can understand.

The argument you hear from some leftists that Tucker Carlson cannot sincerely oppose Israel because he believes in things like the Great Replacement is also weak. The two positions are not logically contradictory. In fact, within a nationalist worldview, they can easily fit together. A person who believes Western countries are being demographically transformed through mass migration, collapsing birth rates, and ruling-class indifference to national continuity can also believe American foreign policy has been captured by interests hostile to national sovereignty.

You can hate that worldview. You can call it reactionary. You can say it easily turns into xenophobia. But it is not incoherent for someone with that worldview to oppose Israel. There is a growing nationalist argument against supporting Israel. There is an America First argument against funding Israel. There is an isolationist argument against war with Iran. There is a conservative argument that asks why American politicians care more about Israel’s security than America’s own security. You can dislike these arguments, but pretending they do not make sense is dishonest.

The reality is that a large part of the American Right is beginning to realize that Israel is a liability. That is a problem for the pro-Israel consensus. It is not a problem for Palestine. And this is precisely what has frightened two groups of people.

First, it frightens the Zionists who are not really against Israel, but only against Netanyahu. These are the people who want to preserve the basic legitimacy of Israel, preserve the American alliance, preserve the moral mythology, and simply blame everything on one bad leader or one bad government. They do not want Americans asking deeper questions about the relationship itself.

Second, it frightens the fake leftists who wanted Palestine to remain their pet cause, their little virtue-signaling inheritance, their one remaining badge of moral superiority. They were comfortable when Palestine was something they could use to distinguish themselves from everyone outside their political subculture. But now the issue is escaping them. Now people they hate are saying things against Israel. Now their monopoly on the moral symbolism of Palestine is collapsing. And frankly, good.

If you actually care about Palestine, you should want Israel to be isolated, demilitarized, defunded, sanctioned, and politically delegitimized by any means necessary. You should want the pressure to come from the Left and the Right. You should want progressive Democrats, conservative Republicans, antiwar libertarians, Arab and Muslim organizations, Christian dissidents, nationalist populists, and ordinary people disgusted by dead children to all attack the pro-Israel consensus from different directions.

If a few right-wing members of Congress help push legislation that cuts off money and weapons to Israel, so be it. If Marjorie Taylor Greene votes for that legislation, take the vote. If Tucker Carlson humiliates some pro-Israel ghoul in front of millions of people, take the clip. If Candace Owens convinces a bunch of conservatives to question Israel for the first time in their lives, take the effect and stop crying about the vibes.

Seriously, what is the argument here? That saying politically incorrect things is worse than an actual genocide? That being racist, reactionary, conspiratorial, or vulgar is so uniquely evil that we should refuse to work with anyone who helps stop American support for mass killing? That the moral hygiene of the coalition matters more than whether children keep getting blown apart with American weapons? This is insane.

I am not afraid to call it genocide. At this point, pretending not to see it is just cowardice with a style guide. You can call it ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter, exterminatory violence, or whatever other term makes liberals feel legally cautious and morally sophisticated. But the reality is obvious. We are watching a society be starved, bombed, displaced, and destroyed while the most powerful country on earth funds the destruction. And you know what, Marjorie Taylor Greene was willing to call it a genocide before Bernie Sanders was. People might point to her earlier cases of blatant racism and ill treatment of congresswomen like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib a few years ago. But people can change. I saw with my own eyes people I knew in real life, people who previously did not care about this issue, become radicalized simply by seeing footage of dead Palestinian children every day. Regardless of past behaviors or the unfalsifiability of “pure” intentions, the fact of the matter is that Marjorie Taylor Greene and various figures on the Right going against Israel is a net positive. They are making their American viewers more aware of the crimes of the Israeli state and the massive degree of influence Zionist organizations exert on the U.S. government, which is a huge deal in a political system in which going against the Israel lobby is career suicide, as Jamaal Bowman, Thomas Massie, and many others found out.

So no, I do not care if the person voting against that funding has bad opinions. I do not care if the person challenging the Israel lobby does not have the correct theory of liberation. I do not care if the person exposing American subservience to Israel is impolite, vulgar, reactionary, or hated by the liberal-left professional class. I care about whether the bombs stop.

When someone on the Right helps weaken the machinery that keeps those bombs flowing, I will take it, criticize them on everything else, and sleep just fine. Unless they are a flat out neo-nazi who does not care about dead Palestinian children and only hates Jews. But this simply is not the case for Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Pretending that every person on the right is a Nazi is like calling every democratic socialist a communist.

Stopping Genocide, but At What Cost?

This is where the whole leftst pundit moral panic about “right-wing co-optation” as soon as the Palestine issue finally becomes mainstream is especially revealing. To say that Palestine is being co-opted assumes that Palestine was owned by the Left in the first place. But it was not. Palestine is not the property of “the Left.” It is not a campus subculture. It is not a progressive brand asset. It is not a moral aesthetic that exists to make Western leftists feel brave, sensitive, radical, and more humane than everyone else. It is a real struggle involving real people who are being starved, bombed, displaced, imprisoned, and humiliated in front of the entire world.

That is why the left-liberal anxiety about “co-optation” is obscene, and reveals more about the intentions of the people echoing this anxiety than it does about the people they warn against. It treats the Palestine issue less as a concrete political struggle and more as a sacred badge of ideological distinction. Palestine becomes the thing that allows certain leftists to distinguish themselves from conservatives, liberals, moderates, normies, boomers, Fox News viewers, and all the other spiritually damned people who do not speak in the authorized dialect of progressive morality.

As opposition to Israel spreads outside of the Left, leftists can no longer pretend that the mere act of opposing Israel is proof of superior political virtue. Opposition to Israel is no longer a boutique radical position that allows certain leftists to distinguish their brand. And that, I suspect, is what some of the leftist influencers/thought leaders complaining about “co-option” are truly concerned about, even if they won’t admit it to themselves.

The fear is not really that the Right will co-opt Palestine. The fear is that Palestine will escape the Left’s control as a symbolic possession. The fear is that the issue will become too large, too morally obvious, too politically explosive, and too popular to remain confined inside the narrow world of progressive self-flattery. Good. Let it escape. If progressives really care about the cause, they should swallow their pride and accept that it is possible to agree with right-wingers on some things.

The suffering of Palestinians is not there to decorate the self-image of Western leftists. It is not there to make liberal-left commentators feel like courageous dissidents while they preach to the same small class of people who already agree with them. If people on the Right are beginning to turn against Israel, the task is not to cry about impurity. The task is to exploit the fracture, deepen it, and force the contradiction until the bipartisan machinery of support for Israel begins to break.

So yes, support Graham Platner if he wants to cut off funding to Israel. Support Marjorie Taylor Greene on the specific legislation where she does the same. Welcome Tucker Carlson’s attacks on pro-Israel foreign policy officials when they expose the insanity of American obedience to Israel. Welcome Candace Owens if she turns conservatives against Israel. Then criticize all of them ruthlessly on whatever else you disagree with them on. It’s not rocket science. You don’t have to enter a political party with them. The real hypocrisy is pretending to care about stopping a genocide while rejecting the very alliances, fractures, and contradictions that might help stop it. This is where certain people reveal that they care more about owning the cause than advancing it.

Nobody can “co-opt” the Palestinian cause. It does not “belong” to anybody. If any group has a claim to it, it would be the Palestinians themselves. And the least we can do is to actually do whatever is necessary to stop the U.S.-backed Israeli war machine from massacring them. That means advancing a policy that alters the U.S.’s relationship with Israel, which will require working across partisan lines. If they aren’t cool with that, then they aren’t serious about political change, and are, in fact, bigger virtue-signaling opportunists than the right-wing “grifters” they criticize.

Sources

Nathan J. Robinson, “The Right Are No Friends of Palestine,” Current Affairs, May 28, 2026, https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-right-are-no-friends-of-palestine.
[the article being criticized, including Robinson’s framing of right-wing criticism of Israel as unreliable or dangerous.]

Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 207, H.R. 4016, On Agreeing to the Amendment, Greene of Georgia Part A Amendment No. 114,” July 18, 2025, https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025207.
[The official vote record showing Greene’s amendment failed 6 to 422, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee, and Al Green voting Aye, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voting No.]

Grace Gilson, “AOC Faces Backlash, Vandalism After Voting Against Cutting US Aid from Israel’s Iron Dome,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 21, 2025, updated July 22, 2025, https://www.jta.org/2025/07/21/politics/aoc-faces-backlash-vandalism-after-voting-against-cutting-us-aid-from-israels-iron-dome.
[For the controversy over AOC’s vote against Greene’s amendment, the $500 million Iron Dome funding issue, and the fact that Omar, Tlaib, Lee, Al Green, Greene, and Massie supported the amendment.]

Chantelle Lee, “AOC Faces Death Threats, Vandalism After Voting Against Amendment to Cut Israel Iron Dome Funding,” TIME, July 22, 2025, https://time.com/7304608/aoc-death-threats-vandalism-israel-gaza/.
[AOC’s explanation that Greene’s amendment targeted Iron Dome / defensive capacities rather than offensive munitions used in Gaza.]

Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 275, H.R. 5323, On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass,” September 23, 2021, https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2021275.
[For the official 2021 House vote on the $1 billion Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act, showing AOC voted Present while Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, Marie Newman, and Thomas Massie voted No.]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “A Note to Our NY-14 Community from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” September 24, 2021, https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/press-releases/note-our-ny-14-community-rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez.
[AOC’s excuse for why she opposed the 2021 Iron Dome bill but ultimately cast a Present vote.]

Marc Rod, “AOC Blasts ‘Proven Bigot and Antisemite’ MTG, Earning Some Far-Left Criticism,” Jewish Insider, May 10, 2026, https://jewishinsider.com/2026/05/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-marjorie-taylor-greene-israel-far-left-criticism/.
[AOC’s later statement rejecting alignment with Marjorie Taylor Greene on Israel policy and calling Greene a “proven bigot and antisemite.”]

“Marjorie Taylor Greene Is First Republican Lawmaker to Call Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide,’” GV Wire / New York Times News Service, July 29, 2025, https://gvwire.com/2025/07/29/marjorie-taylor-greene-is-first-republican-lawmaker-to-call-gaza-crisis-a-genocide/.
[Greene being described as the first Republican member of Congress to publicly call the Gaza crisis a genocide.]

Isaac Schorr, “‘They’re Breaking U.S. Laws’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Rips AIPAC for Lobbying for Genocide in Gaza,” Mediaite, August 7, 2025, https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/theyre-breaking-u-s-laws-marjorie-taylor-greene-rips-aipac-for-lobbying-for-genocide-in-gaza/.
[Greene’s claim that AIPAC should register as a foreign lobbyist / foreign agent.]

Thomas Massie, “Rep. Massie Introduces the ‘Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity Act’ to Require All Foreign Lobbyists to Register Under FARA,” May 14, 2026, https://massie.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=395839.
[Massie’s AIPAC Act, which would amend FARA so organizations principally advancing foreign interests could be required to register as foreign agents.]

Marc Rod, “AIPAC’s Super PAC Takes Aim at Thomas Massie with Major Ad Buy,” Jewish Insider, April 21, 2026, https://jewishinsider.com/2026/04/aipac-united-democracy-project-ad-buy-thomas-massie/.
[United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, targeting Thomas Massie with a $790,000 ad buy.]

Andrew Solender, “Democrats Groan at AIPAC’s $14.5 Million ‘Overkill’ Against Jamaal Bowman,” Axios, June 26, 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/06/26/democrats-aipac-jamaal-bowman-george-latimer.
[AIPAC / United Democracy Project spending at least $14.5 million against Jamaal Bowman.]

Julia Terruso, “Inside Graham Platner’s Controversial Rise,” TIME, May 21, 2026, https://time.com/article/2026/05/20/graham-platner-profile/.
[Platner’s background, military service, campaign rise, and controversies.]

Josh Keefe, “Read Our Full Archive of Graham Platner’s Deleted Reddit Comments,” The Maine Monitor, May 11, 2026, https://themainemonitor.org/platner-reddit-comments/.
[on the deleted Reddit comments, including the broader controversy over Platner’s past remarks.]

Matthew Kassel, “Newly Surfaced Recording of Graham Platner Highlights His Israel Fixation,” Jewish Insider, November 3, 2025, https://jewishinsider.com/2025/11/graham-platner-israel-gaza-war-oct-7-hamas-maine-senate-candidate/.
[Platner making opposition to Israel central to his campaign, accusing Israel of genocide, advocating blocking U.S. aid to Israel, and criticizing AIPAC.]

Marc Caputo, “Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson’s Blowup Exposes MAGA’s Divide on War with Iran,” Axios, June 18, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/06/18/ted-cruz-tucker-carlson-iran-interview.
[Tucker Carlson confronting Ted Cruz over Iran, Israel, AIPAC, and the divide between pro-Israel and isolationist wings of the Right.]

White House, “Fact Sheet: Memorandum of Understanding Reached with Israel,” September 14, 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/14/fact-sheet-memorandum-understanding-reached-israel/.
[ Obama administration’s ten-year U.S.-Israel military assistance memorandum.]

Susan E. Rice, “The U.S. Is Making a Historic Investment to Protect the Security of Israel,” The White House Blog, September 14, 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/09/14/us-making-historic-investment-protect-security-israel.
[The $38 billion figure attached to the ten-year military aid memorandum.]

Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” December 5, 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/.
[For Amnesty’s conclusion that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.]

International Court of Justice, “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip: South Africa v. Israel,” Case No. 192, https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192.
[For the ICJ genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.]

International Court of Justice, “Order of 26 January 2024,” Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip: South Africa v. Israel, January 26, 2024, https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447.
[ICJ provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent acts under the Genocide Convention.]